"The only way I can describe it is 'transcendent.'"

Late last month Megan and I went to see Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl. I had never seen them before so I was asking around to see which friends had seen them. You know, to get an idea of what I was in for. Without fail, every person who had seen them raved about how amazing they were. Now, I'm a pretty big fan of Radiohead, but I assumed that people were getting caught up in the hype of a band they adored. I never assumed I would experience what I did.

Without a doubt, Radiohead was the best live show I have ever seen. In fact, I don't even want to call it a "live show" since it was so much more. The strange thing is, I can't figure out why. I dissected each individual part of the night to see if I could understand better. Here's the closest I could come to a formula:

Amazing light show that must be seen to be understood (see picture at top)
+
As close to perfect of a performance from the group as possible
+
Almost every song I hoped to hear
+
Not too many completely annoying people around to ruin the experience
=
The perfect concert experience

But wait, that doesn't make sense. I've been to shows before that have all those elements and I still walked away from those shows thinking, "that was fun"...not, "that was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced."

It makes even less sense when you consider how many negatives surrounded the experience:

-We were sitting 3 rows from the very back of the Bowl (that's REALLY far away)
-I had had multiple alcoholic beverages (dulling the senses)
-The people in front of us spent the first part of the show talking quite loudly, as if they were at a party with friends and the music was just coming from the radio (though thanks to our seat-neighbors they were quieted)
-Megan had to work the next morning (at 8:30am) and the show was going late
-Etc, etc, etc

I look at the positives (which seem very generic), and I add in the negatives (which seem pretty annoying/distracting), and my first thought is that the end result should not be so great. So what is it that made that particular show so incredible?

It has to be soul.

Thom York (even from the back of the Bowl) exudes such passion for what he is doing that you can't help but be sucked in and entranced by every vocal utterance and musical sound. Watching him sing and play makes me think that if he was not making music, he would die. He puts so much of himself into every second of the show that it is no longer like watching a concert...it is more like watching a performance piece where the main character is bearing his every emotion for all to see.

I saw this show over a week ago and have stalled writing about it since then. I have a really hard time writing about something so meaningful when I know that my words will hardly convey how I feel or how the experience actually was. Imagine reading a blog about how amazing skydiving is. No matter how perfect the word choice is, you are not going to understand what skydiving is like...unless you do it.

The last two paragraphs are my biggest concern right now. First, I didn't want to write about this because I knew that my experience would never be fully conveyed in words. Second, I didn't want to start writing about the "oh-my-gosh-it-was-magical" aspect of the show because I knew it would start to sound pretentious. There seems to be no easy way of writing about a band like Radiohead. In one respect, they are just a band; in another, they are the mouthpiece for a generation that feels full of despair and hopelessness over the prospect of the future. They are some amazing conglomeration of the wholly physical and secular and wholly metaphysical and spiritual.

And in the end, I feel as if I should have kept all this to myself...like that kid you see cupping something in his hands and peeking at whatever it is he has while he smiles a smile that reads: I am the luckiest person in the world. At the same time, if I don't at least attempt to share experiences like this one, I will end up conveying that my life is uninteresting dross not worth your time. But just like I feel that my friend's stories and experiences are enlightening and life-enhancing, so I hope mine are.